ever walked into a fastfood store with no one on the counter but you, and when you're happily devouring your meal you look back and see that the line on the counter is longer than the great wall of china? that's the jet effect...

Friday, August 24, 2007

inspired by recent thoughts on The Love Clinic, with Dr. Love, Tom Alvarez, late nights on Monster Radio RX 93.1

Dear Dr. Love,

I imagine there is a lot to be said about the other woman. The hate-filled words and all the expletives that this indifferent world hurls at herm are more than enough to char her name. But I wonder, what does one say about the other man?

Jessica and I are teammates in our corporate world. Trapped in tiresome board meetings that stretch for ungodly hours, we would often find ourselves chatting on coffee-breaks, or after-meeting late night dinners. At times, I would give her a ride home when I would insist the streets aren’t safe for a pretty woman alone at night. At other times she would repay the thought with a hearty lunch.

We got so comfortable with each other, Dr. Love, that we shared more than corporate matters between us. She’s a mother of an insanely adorable one-year-old, and enjoys most of the same things that tickle my fancy. She is married, but whether happily is something I cannot say. She would oftentimes flood me with the problems of her troubled domestic life and of how she had patiently tried to fix them. What they were, she would not say, and I am in no position to elaborate.

In recent times, my empathy for her turned into something else. I think I am falling in love with Jessica.

Dr. Love, I foolishly think that her marital dispute is a window of opportunity for me to snatch her away from her husband. I am seriously considering ending her misery with him and start a new life with me. She seems to be more than willing to acquiesce.

I don’t want to be the other man, Dr. Love, the one who would wreck her legal home. I know is should be helping her sort things out and not encourage her to come with me. But I know how I feel, and although I still am with infantile emotions, I know I can grow into genuine love.

Help me, Dr. Love. Should I pursue my immoral endeavor? Or should I just walk away? Perhaps you could start by letting 38 Special croon to their sentimental words in “Second Chance” as my love cure song. She could have said these words herself.

Thank you and may your words of advice, or reprimand, strike some sense into me.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

After a passing conversation with a butt-light carrying insect (an alitaptap in the vernacular), I made up the postulate of the first inquirer. With much inspiration from the big screen ad of some daily spread, I poised to ask: who was indeed the first inquirer? Who dared ask the first question?

Eve.

The biblical female who, in the book of genesis, is faulted with the first sin of god’s beloved man, is probably also painted in a demeaning light. Trains of thoughts have since took voyage in my mind after my sunday afternoon epiphany and as I would expect, also a lot of what if’s.

If indeed angels had the disability to compare their squalid state of blind obedience and their existence is oblivious to the popular human emotions of envy, greed, and insatiable desire, then the morning star would not have had the idea that man is favored over his kind (unless of course, he too has taken the bite of the fruit of the infamous tree. but where would he get the idea in the first place). He would not have started the heavenly Star Wars and there wouldn’t be any consequential temptation of Eve by the snake.

Given this highly presumptuous theory, Eve would then be imbibed with curiosity looking at the ominous tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. The bible tells of how Eve offered the fruit to her companion (not spouse, as the sacrament of marriage then was still nonexistent) Adam. What prompted her to take the fruit, without serpentine influence, could be her mind asking simple questions about the irregularities of the premature god.

Why were we forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree?

Why was it in the middle of the garden, in plain sight, readily accessible to every animal ever created?

Why was it placed strategically where it can tempt the most?

Was it place deliberately to test how much I can take, or if I will buckle?

Why was I ever punished for exercising my greatest right – free will?

Eve’s brain must be a chaotic mess, and her heart must be pounding every beat as she searched for answers. And as the deity who made them only speaks to his male companion, Eve must be battling her wits moreover. To add to the temptation, the answer she seeks is right there in front of her, taunting her, begging her to be eaten.

As a footnote to this absurdly wonderful theory, the first and the greatest cover-up in history was also committed. Man was not to be blamed, as he is as the maker is, so is he also perfect. Free will was a gift not given by mistake, but instead a very vulnerable point in man, which can either cause him to suffer, or be rewarded. Evil was the cause of man’s downfall. Evil. An entity created when an unfeeling angel decided God stepped over the line.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

The brightly colored ceiling of that ominous structure seemed pale at that moment when I lifted my head from sporadic sleep. Sitting in that monoblock chair while listening to a man garbed in white talk about how earthly possessions are of no use in the afterlife, I feel like I was intoxicated with sleep serum.

Then it hit me.

In times like these, I consider myself one of two things – either I am greatly blessed with the gift of an open mind and great reason, or I am simply greatly insane. Either way, I can tell my brain cells are at work again, and that senility is just around the corner, having consumed so much of these little critters that I think none is left in the insides of my skull.

I was staring at the man in white, hearing him speak, but not really listening, or at least trying to. Out of nothingness, I felt somebody behind me (which of course is just the wall, cue twilight zone theme) whisper. I felt the demons of this church were at work, looking out for those yawning, or balancing their checkbooks. I was simply questioning what the man in white was saying, about the things you shouldn’t and should do. I was probably interesting enough for these demons that one chose to talk to me (albeit of course, I was only talking to myself) The conversation, at least I think it was one, went like this:

Me (M): I know you’re there… what do you want?Demon (matt?? Hehehe): (nothing, just silence…)

O baka naman talaga yan ang trabaho mo? Manakot. Magparusa. Kung ganon nga, you are still under the service of God! (or maybe that is really your job? To scare. To punish. If so, you are still under the service of God!)

What if, your new job is really to punish. And that you are part of the grand –rewards-punishment scheme of the universe!

Ha! Hindi na ako takot sa iyo! (I’m no longer scared of you!)

Thus my epiphany that night. It occurred to me that Lucifer, after all these time, could not, and would not ask for forgiveness from the man upstairs. Why? Speculations abound, but that night, I was convinced that he didn’t need to. He was “transferred” to a new role, from the bearer of light, the morning star, to the one called Satan, Belzeebub, and all other hideous names which man has come to call him. He now handles the punishment part of the scheme. And that without him, or the thought of hell, the souls of man will not follow the righteous way of the scriptures.

He is there to keep us all in line. I now have little belief that there ever was a great heavenly war, between angels and angels over the existence of men. The whole bad image of demons and the underworld was created to keep us in fear, fearful of the immense punishment that awaits the wicked. Eternal damnation for the bad.

On the other side of the epiphany, this is perhaps the ultimate revenge the angels have on the weakling called man created by the man upstairs with the gift of free will, and endowed with immeasurable mercy and understanding.

I pity the angels. Their existence is one of servitude and obedience, BUT with the conscious knowledge that another creature, made after them, enjoys a whole lot of freedom, with the option of making mistakes and then being forgiven simply by repenting. Theirs must be a life of continuous hell…